Friday, March 23, 2007

50 Reasons to Love & Hate the EU

As Tony Blair goes to Berlin this weekend to sign away even more of our sovereignty to celebrate 50 years of the EU, Trixy comes up with 50 reasons why the EU has been a bad thing HERE. She responds to the Independent's 50 reasons to love the EU HERE. I'll leave you to judge which list I most agreed with...

15 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Iain, I think you are being a little harsh - many of the Indy's points are clearly tongue-in-cheek. Since many are not related to EU membership [I don't recall Mrs T being told to privatise BT by the Frogs].

Although the 'ending war' one is, I'm afraid, outside my humour comfort zone given what has happened in the Balkans..

What she seems to be implying is that some of the things like 'democratic deficit' or the 'secrecy' of the EU Commission is evidence of a lack of organisation and planning in doing things for the benefit of citizens.

I would argue that the secrecy and anti-democratic principles are VITAL to the project, as they would never have got their grand vision and ideas agreed to if there had been democracy and transparency.

The very fact that they have been able to eliminate opposition and dissent and a power of veto over the ever greater powers they are taking from nations is evidence of SUCCESS in their aims. It is that which they always wanted from day 1.

And both Tories and Labour have been complicit in it, if not by design, through 'sins of omission'.

I think Tony Blair has gone to Berlin to find out whether he is to be selected the unelected, imperially appointed president-for-life. If not selected, I am confident that he will not be leaving Downing St any time soon.

I could not find one point out of their list that has justified the many billions of tax payers money paid out over the years.If it is tongue in cheek,I'm to find this funny? Does anyone know of a Norwegian daily with a list on the front page declaring,'Fifty good reasons why we did not join the EU.'? Oh, what might have been!

Ya know, I've just read the "50 reasons to love the EU" and out of the 50, I'd say 20-25 are directly attributable to the EU and are good, another ten or so have absolutely nothing to do with the EU as such (ex. peace in Europe was helpded by the EU, no doubt, but was the result of the US and the COld War with the USSR; and Europe's multilingualism really means everybody in the continent is learning English, and that is for market reasons to which the EU contributes but did not cause). Another ten or so are repeptitions of points previously made, just refining previously stated points. A few are just mean snipes at the average Briton by what can only be a stereotypical wine-and-cheese chatterer, with lip curled up and moral superiority towering. And a few are pure ideological points, added into the list like point 42 Europe a a counterweight to the US?? The last politicians to speak in such terms were Gerhard Schroeder (a Russian-paid whore) and Jacques Chirac (who is such an embarassment in France his own political party turned against him).

Here's what I added to An Englishman's Castle's list of reasons to love America:

Brie meltsCole PorterP J O'Rourke (again!)Conservative talk radioThe US MilitaryCold beerCalifornia winesElvisBuffy The Vampire SlayerElla Fitzgerald"We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal ..."ManhattanTexas

What these leftwing EU supporting idealogues tend to ignore is the fact that there is no guarantee that a federal Europe could not fall into the hands of a rightwing, fascist,neo-con junta in the not too distant future.Come to think of it,America is a country of immigrants,run by rightwing neo-cons.If that's what you want!